Tag: perpetual war

US to withdraw some troops from NATO’s eastern flank, Romania says

The United States plans to cut the number of troops present on Europe’s eastern flank, including soldiers who were to be stationed at Romania’s Mihail Kogalniceanu air base, Romania’s defence ministry said on Wednesday.

The ministry said the decision was expected given changes in Washington’s priorities, and that roughly 1,000 U.S. troops would continue to be stationed in Romania. Between 1,000 and 1,200 U.S. troops rotated out a month ago and will not be replaced, it said in a statement.

Washington’s European allies have been told previously by the administration of President Donald Trump that they will need to take more responsibility for their own security as the United States focuses more on its own borders and on the Indo-Pacific region.

“The American decision is to stop the rotation in Europe of a brigade that had elements in several NATO countries,” the defence ministry said.

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Trump Directs Pentagon to Start Testing Nuclear Weapons Again

President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered the Pentagon to begin conducting nuclear weapons tests again after a three-decade moratorium on the practice.

“Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “That process will begin immediately.”

Trump posted the statement just before he was set to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea, where the two discussed trade issues.

Nuclear tests in the atmosphere, space, or underwater have been banned since the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty, which permitted continued underground nuclear testing for several decades.

The United States last conducted a nuclear weapons test underground in September 1992.

That year, President George H.W. Bush announced that the United States would undertake a unilateral moratorium on all nuclear weapons testing, including those conducted underground.

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Israel Declares Gaza Ceasefire Back on After It Kills Over 100 Palestinians, Including 46 Children

The Israeli military announced on Wednesday that it was re-implementing the ceasefire in Gaza after unleashing heavy airstrikes across the Strip that, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, killed at least 104 Palestinians, including 46 children, and 20 women, though it bombed the Strip again later in the day.

The escalation came after Israel claimed that its troops in Rafah came under attack, which killed one Israeli soldier. Israel accused Hamas of being behind the attack, but according to Israeli media, the IDF doesn’t know if the attack was approved by Hamas leadership or if it was carried out independently by a cell of Palestinian fighters isolated in the Israeli-occupied area. Israel’s Walla news reported that the attack started when Israeli troops were using heavy equipment in the area and a tunnel the militants were hiding in began to collapse.

For its part, Hamas denied involvement and said that it had “no relation to the shooting incident in Rafah and reaffirms its commitment to the cease-fire agreement.” Israel claimed that the bombardment that killed mostly women and children targeted 30 “terror commanders.”

Israeli media reports said that Israel was ready to launch heavy airstrikes in Gaza before the incident and Rafah over claims that Hamas was violating the deal based on a video Israel said showed Hamas staging the discovery of an Israeli body. But the US said there was no evidence Hamas breached the deal and objected to the escalation.

Israel has been violating the Gaza ceasefire deal since it went into effect on October 10 by not allowing the agreed-upon number of aid trucks to enter the Strip, and has also continued attacks in Gaza, killing about 100 before the major escalation on Tuesday. Later on Wednesday, Israel launched another airstrike in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, killing at least two people.

Despite the breaches, the US hasn’t offered any public criticism of Israel’s actions and has backed the massive bombardment. “They killed an Israeli soldier. So the Israelis hit back. And they should hit back,” President Trump said on Wednesday.

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Intel Operative Tried To Recruit Maduro’s Pilot, Have Him Divert a Flight So That US Authorities Could Arrest Venezuelan Dictator

The ‘betrayal in the skies’ did not happen.

Under the feeble Joe Biden administration, a federal agent developed an operation that, while unsuccessful, demonstrates just how approachable is the inner circle of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.

The agent approached Nicolás Maduro’s chief pilot, General Bitner Villegas, with an offer: divert the Venezuelan presidential plane to a place where US authorities could detain him.

In exchange, the pilot would become ‘a very rich man’.

Associated Press reported:

“The conversation was tense, and the pilot left noncommittal, though he provided the agent, Edwin Lopez, with his cell number — a sign he might be interested in helping the U.S. government. Over the next 16 months, even after retiring from his government job in July, Lopez kept at it, chatting with the pilot over an encrypted messaging app.”

The operation – started under Biden but seemingly continued during Trump’s administration – seems very improvised to the observer, but sheds light on the Maduro team’s vulnerabilities.

“’I’m still waiting for your answer’, Lopez wrote the pilot on Aug. 7, attaching a link to a Justice Department press release announcing the reward had risen to $50 million.

Details of the ultimately unsuccessful plan were drawn from interviews with three current and former U.S. officials, as well as one of Maduro’s opponents. All spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were either not authorized to discuss the effort or feared retribution for disclosing it. The Associated Press also reviewed — and authenticated — text exchanges between Lopez and the pilot.”

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Calls Out Israel for Slaughtering Dozens of Children in Gaza

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Wednesday called out Israel for its heavy bombardment in Gaza and the killing of dozens of children in the Strip.

“Israel’s military said Wednesday that the ceasefire was back on in Gaza after it killed 104 people, including 46 children, according to local health officials,” Greene wrote on X. “46 CHILDREN!!! Are these not war crimes?”

Israel’s heavy airstrikes that began on Tuesday pounded targets across Gaza and also killed 20 women, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry said that another 253 people were wounded, including 78 children and 84 women.

In recent months, Greene has been outspoken in her opposition to US military aid to Israel and has introduced bills attempting to strip assistance to Israel from the annual Pentagon spending bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act.

Back in July, Greene became the first Republican in Congress to label Israel’s campaign in Gaza a genocide. “It’s the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct 7th in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza,” she said.

Greene has also clashed with the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC after it attacked her in response to her criticism of Israel. “The truth is AIPAC needs to register as a foreign lobbyist by US law because they are representing the secular government of nuclear armed Israel 100%!!!” Greene wrote on X in August.

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Inside The Trump Administration’s “Master Plan” For Gaza Regime Change

On October 10, the latest Gaza ceasefire was officially declared. According to the plan, ‘Phase One’ of the ceasefire was supposed to include a full cessation of hostilities, the mutual exchange of captives on both sides, with pledges for at least 400 humanitarian aid trucks to enter the besieged coastal territory for five days and an unlimited number afterwards.

From day one, Israel not only violated the ceasefire agreement through shooting dead a number of Palestinian civilians, but also unleashed a range of Palestinian collaborator militias to begin targeting Gaza’s local security forces. Hamas, as the governing force inside the Gaza Strip decided to re-deploy some 7,000 police and security officers to the streets of the war-ravaged territory, attempting to restore order after its forces were prevented from operating during Israel’s relentless bombardments.

Although Israel’s own forces have directly murdered over 100 Palestinian civilians since the start of the ceasefire, it had decided to switch its strategy on October 10 to using proxy forces to do its bidding instead of its own soldiers. The insidious plot, or “master plan” that has been in the works over the past two years, as US Envoy Steve Witkoff admitted during a recent interview on 60-minutes, also involves carving up Gaza into cantons ruled by separate forces.

This plot is a strategy for a multi-layered scheme that will seek to effect regime change, and in its worst iteration means the tax payer will foot the bill for another multi-national war of aggression — the goal being the completion of the objectives Israel failed to achieve through its own military operations.

In order to fully understand this scheme, all the relevant factors must be explored.

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Amnesty Urges US Bombing of Yemen Migrant Detention Facility To Be Investigated as a War Crime

Amnesty International said on Wednesday that the US bombing of a migrant detention facility in Yemen earlier this year amounted to an indiscriminate attack and should be investigated as a war crime.

The US strike was launched on April 28 and killed 68 African migrants who were detained at the facility in Yemen’s northern Saada province. The attack was part of the US military’s bombing campaign in Yemen that was conducted from March 15 to May 15, which was dubbed “Operation Rough Rider,” and killed more than 250 civilians.

Amnesty said in a report on the strike that it “did not find any evidence that the migrant detention centre was a military objective or that it contained any military objectives.”

The report, which involved interviews with 15 Ethiopian migrants who survived the attack, also pointed out that the US should have been aware that the strike would result in heavy civilian casualties since the Saudi military, with support from the US, bombed the same facility in 2022 and killed more than 90 civilians.

“Given the air strike killed and injured civilians, the US authorities should investigate this attack as a war crime. The result of the investigation, including any conclusions related to civilian casualties and efforts to respond to them, should promptly be made public,” Amnesty said.

Operation Rough Rider involved another mass civilian casualty event, the US bombing of the Ras Issa fuel port in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, which occurred on April 17. The strikes killed 84 civilians, mainly workers at the port, according to Airwars.

When the US announced the attack on the port, it did not allege that it was hitting a military target. US Central Command justified the bombing of vital civilian infrastructure by saying the Houthis, who govern an area where about 70% to 80% of Yemenis live, “profit” off fuel that enters the port.

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Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ Missile Defense Could Cost $3.6 Trillion: Report

President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, nicknamed Star Wars, promised to create a missile defense system so effective it would eliminate the threat of nuclear war forever, at a cost of around $70 billion. As it turned out, the technology just wasn’t feasible. And the Soviet Union figured out how to overwhelm the missile defense system at five percent of its cost. Reagan’s successor, George H.W. Bush, scaled Star Wars down to a much more modest program called Global Protection Against Limited Strikes, emphasis on limited.

Now President Donald Trump is promising that, with today’s technology, he can create an impenetrable missile shield for $175 billion. But the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated in May 2025 that the program could actually cost up to $542 billion over two decades. And according to independent analysis, the CBO may actually be underestimating the cost sixfold. Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, has calculated a $3.6 trillion price over two decades. Harrison and other experts spoke to The Washington Post for a bombshell report published on Wednesday.

The Golden Dome is designed as a “multi-layered” system. One layer would be ground-based missile batteries. Another would be a constellation of satellites orbiting the Earth, ready to shoot down incoming missiles from above. That latter part was also part of the Star Wars program. Proponents say that lower launch costs today—thanks, Elon Musk—make it more feasible today, according to The Washington Post. Harrison, however, estimates that it would take 950 satellites per enemy missile. The American Physical Society puts the number at 400 interceptors for a lower-end North Korean missile and 1,600 for a higher-end North Korean missile.

North Korea is estimated to have 50 nuclear weapons. And that’s the lower end of the threats that the Golden Dome is supposed to counter. China has hundreds of nuclear weapons, and Russia has thousands. “You need so many more interceptors than missiles, it becomes operationally impractical,” Harrison told the Post.

The Golden Dome program could also scale up ground-based missile defenses. The U.S. military maintains 44 interceptors at a base in Fort Greely, Alaska, designed to launch an “exoatmospheric kill vehicle” that would intercept an incoming ballistic missile in space. But even tests conducted “under scripted conditions and designed for success” show a 55 percent success rate for those interceptors, the American Physical Society reports. The Pentagon has been quite sensitive about that fact. After the recent movie A House of Dynamite depicted U.S. interceptors failing, the Missile Defense Agency wrote up a memo claiming that the system is 100 percent foolproof.

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Netanyahu Orders ‘Immediate and Powerful’ Attacks on Gaza

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the Israeli military to “immediately carry out forceful strikes in the Gaza Strip,” his office said in a statement, signaling the Gaza ceasefire deal is about to collapse.

Israel is claiming that its forces in Rafah came under attack by Hamas fighters, and Palestinians on the ground reported hearing gunfire and strikes in the south, but Hamas has said that it had “no relation to the shooting incident in Rafah and reaffirms its commitment to the cease-fire agreement.”

Israel currently controls about 58% of Gaza’s territory, and Netanyahu has reportedly decided to take over more territory.

After Netanyahu’s announcement, a series of airstrikes were reported in Gaza City and Khan Younis. According to Al Jazeera, witnesses said a “massive” strike hit near the Al-Shifa Hospital. At least 30 people have been killed, and pictures and videos show that many children are among the dead and wounded.

Netanyahu’s statement also came after Israel accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire deal over claims that it was delaying and staging the recovery of the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages. Before the agreement was signed, Israeli officials acknowledged that the bodies would take time to find, and CNN cited officials who said some remains may never be found.

Israel released a video on Tuesday that it said showed Hamas burying a body and then bringing in the Red Cross to recover it, but according to Israeli media, the US didn’t buy Israel’s claim that the footage showed that Hamas violated the ceasefire and objected to Israel launching airstrikes. Then, the alleged attack took place in Rafah, and Netanyahu renewed airstrikes.

Israel has also impeded efforts to recover more bodies by refusing to allow Turkish and Qatari teams to enter the Strip and help locate and retrieve remains, according to two Arab officials speaking to The Times of Israel. The initiative would have also involved representatives from Israel, the US, and Egypt aiding in the effort.

In response to Netanyahu’s announcement, Hamas has said that it has postponed the planned handover of another body due to Israeli “violations.” Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, said any Israeli escalations “will hinder search, digging, and retrieval operations of the bodies, which will lead to a delay in recovering the bodies.” Later in the day, Hamas said that it found two more Israeli bodies during excavations in Gaza City.

While there has been a de-escalation in Gaza, Israeli forces have continued launching attacks since the ceasefire deal was signed on October 10, killing more than 100 Palestinians in that time. Israel has also not allowed the agreed-upon number of aid trucks to enter Gaza.

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Zelensky Says He Needs European Support To Fight Russia for Another Two or Three Years

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that he needs European financial support to fight Russia for another two or three years as the war continues to rage.

“I emphasized this again to all European leaders. I told them that we are not going to fight for decades, but you must show that for some time you will be able to provide stable financial support to Ukraine,” Zelensky said, according to AFP.

“And that is why they have this program in mind – two to three years,” he added, referring to an EU plan to fund Ukraine for a few years using frozen Russian assets. Zelensky said the funds would either be spent on reconstruction or on more weapons.

“If the war ends in a month, we will spend this money on recovery. If it does not end in a month, but after some time, then we will spend it on weapons. We simply have no other choice,” the Ukrainian leader said.

Under a new NATO scheme, known as the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List) initiative, the US’s European allies are committing to purchase American-made weapons for Ukraine, though military aid to the country has dropped significantly since the program was launched, according to a report from the Kiel Institute.

Zelensky also acknowledged on Tuesday that Russian troops have entered the city of Pokrovsk in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk Oblast, which Russian forces have been pushing towards for months. “Around 200 Russians are located there in various places – we see this from drones. Pokrovsk is currently the main target for the Russians,” he said.

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